Uber's self-driving car unit is being set up as a new entity and is getting a major cash infusion from three big Japanese partners.

Hollis Bennett for Uber

Uber’s self-driving car project, regaining its footing after a legal scrap and a fatal accident that killed a pedestrian, is being spun into a new operation and getting a $1 billion financial jolt from Toyota, auto-parts giant Denso and the SoftBank Vision Fund, which has placed multiple bets on autonomous vehicle tech over the past year.

Their partnership is geared toward preparing for "mass production and commercialization of automated ridesharing vehicles and services," Uber said. To that end, Toyota will also invest up to $300 million more over the next three years.

“This investment and our strong partnership with the Toyota Group are a testament to the incredible work of our ATG team to date, and the exciting future ahead for this important project, alongside great partners,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in the post. “The development of automated driving technology will transform transportation as we know it, making our streets safer and our cities more livable. Today’s announcement, along with our ongoing OEM and supplier relationships, will help maintain Uber’s position at the forefront of that transformation.”

ATG has had a tumultuous history in its short existence. Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick’s ill-advised decision to buy Levandowski’s short-lived robot truck startup Otto for an exorbitant price and hire former Google engineer Anthony Levandowski to lead it, triggered a lawsuit from Alphabet Inc.’s driverless tech unit Waymo, alleging accusations of stolen trade secrets. Khosrowshahi worked out a costly settlement with Waymo to resolve it in early 2018, about a month before another setback. In March 2018 a self-driving Uber test vehicle struck and killed a woman crossing a dark street in Tempe, Arizona, the result of tech flaws and an inattentive human safety driver.

Uber ATG was ordered to shut down operations in Arizona, but restarted public testing months later, mainly in Pittsburgh where ATG is located. Along with cash, bringing in automotive expertise from Toyota and Denso, each with legions of engineers and software developers, could help reaccelerate the program while also spreading costs to established industry players.

“Toyota is dedicated to realizing a safe and secure future mobility society,” Shigeki Tomoyama, Toyota’s executive vice president, said in a statement. “We believe that the combined work of Toyota, Denso and Uber ATG on developing next-generation autonomous vehicle hardware will accelerate the timeline for and early success of automated ridesharing services.”

Softbank previously acquired a $2.25 billion stake in General Motors' Cruise unit, the Detroit-based carmaker's self-driving tech company, and in February committed $940 million to Nuro, a startup led by former Google engineers that's creating robotic delivery vehicles.

“With a comprehensive platform of hardware and software, the largest global ridesharing network and Toyota’s partnership, this collaboration is well-positioned to deploy automated ridesharing services at scale," said Rajeev Misra, CEO of the SoftBank Vision Fund.